The Prince's Devious Proposal - Holly Rayner Page 0,42

and the kids?”

“They’re doing well too,” Sarah said. “Harry just got promoted.”

“Oh, that’s great,” Naomi said. She hesitated, wondering what to say next.

Sarah was five years older than Naomi, enough of a gap that they hadn’t been close when they were children. By the time Naomi had been old enough to want to spend time with her sister, Sarah had been busy with friends, and a short while later, boyfriends. Then, just a few years later, she had gone off to college. She had always been a distant figure in Naomi’s life—someone to look up to, someone to admire, but not someone to confide in.

Naomi had hoped to deepen their relationship after the death of their mother. It was difficult confronting the fact that Sarah was the only family she had left. But even now, Sarah didn’t really need Naomi. She was ahead of her in life, with a husband and children to fill the empty places in her heart. Sarah had never been alone in the way Naomi had after their mother’s death.

She wondered what her sister would say if she knew that Naomi was married now.

She would probably disapprove.

Sarah had always been the pragmatic one, the realist. She had been doubtful about Naomi’s ability to produce a music album, and she had been more surprised than anyone else in the family when that album had led to a tour. Naomi knew that her sister considered her to be flighty and irresponsible; if she told Sarah about her whirlwind courtship and marriage to Petr, that would just confirm what Sarah already thought about her.

And she could never ask for Sarah’s advice on how to deal with the way Petr had been acting these past few days. Sarah would just tell her that it was what she should have expected, getting married as quickly as she had.

And, let’s face it, she would probably be right. She usually is.

Fortunately, Sarah didn’t ask Naomi what had been happening in her life. “Do you have some time to talk?” she asked.

“I just got off work, actually,” Naomi said. “I’m in the car.”

“Do you want to call me back when you get home?” Sarah asked.

“No, it’s fine,” Naomi said. She was curious about the motivation behind this call, since Sarah so infrequently called her. She had no desire to disconnect now.

Besides, she wasn’t going home. She was going to the Crystal Lounge. And she definitely didn’t want to be on the phone with her sister there. She would want to give her full attention to Petr, to figuring out what was going on with him.

Whatever Sarah had called to say, it would make her late to meet Petr. But that was okay, she decided. Let him wait for her. It would be good for him to experience what it was like to have to wait for somebody. And maybe it would be good for her, too, to be the one keeping him waiting.

“So what are you calling about?” Naomi asked.

“The lawyers are finished looking at Mom’s will,” Sarah said.

“It’s about time,” Naomi said. “What took them so long?”

“I don’t know,” Sarah said. “I guess it was complicated. Nobody is getting the house. She put it on the market, and we’ll each get a payout when it sells.”

“That’s okay,” Naomi said. She wouldn’t have wanted to go back and live in her parents’ house anyway. There were too many memories there. She wouldn’t have been able to walk through the place without expecting to see them around every corner. It would just be too painful.

“I thought so too,” Sarah said. “But of course, I’m in New York. I wouldn’t have wanted to move the whole family to California anyway. So the house would have been yours.”

“It’s more fair this way,” Naomi said. “We can split the profits when it sells.”

“Are you still living in that little condo?” There was a note of disapproval in Sarah’s voice.

It was a decent opening to tell her sister about her marriage to Petr, but Naomi wasn’t ready. She would talk about that when she felt more confident in what direction the marriage was going to go.

“Yes,” she said. “Maybe I’ll move out soon, though.”

“I think you probably will,” Sarah said. “That’s the real reason I’m calling.”

“What is? What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s not just the house, as it turns out,” Sarah said. “Mom left both of us a pretty sizable inheritance.”

Naomi had sort of expected that some money might be coming her way. She knew that her father, upon